"InterStellar" and The Printed Word

We just saw Interstellar. By far one of the best movies, let alone Sci-Fi movies, of the year - if you stretch your mind, you may consider it the thinking person's Guardians of the Galaxy.

There is balance in the universe.

Spoiler alert - sorta.

I could probably explain every scene I remember and NOT give away anything.  This is one of those movies that can't be spoiled.  I love viewing versions of future life, looking for the little details like how often the characters make copies or print.  It's a curse.

Perhaps it happens to a lot of people, we start seeing the same themes and images repeated in movies and TV shows - the older we get, the more often we see.

Interstellar, for all its original imagery and story-lines, paid homage to works of the past.

Here are a few:


Planet of the Apes - Charlton Heston version

The nose of the lifting body space craft can be seen poking out of water.  They crash land into a lake.

Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind -

Machines mystically return home, books fly off shelves and coordinates to a secret, government liar are revealed via morse code, leading our hero to the rings of Saturn.

2001 - A Space Odyssey -

Obvious reference as one of the robots discusses its 'sense of humor' setting.  The spinning ship and lights reflecting off of visors offers inescapable comparison.

For me, the master compare occurs when Cooper ejects and is alone in space.  Much like the ending scenes of Odyssey, man is alone.

The Perfect Storm -

Haven't seen a wave that big since Clooney and clan.

Batman & Inception -

Snow, rock and Ice.  Nolan loves those things.



Totally New Images -

Swinging seats in the Ranger spacecraft.  I don't know the exact functionality of a swing-chair cockpit - it all depends on Gravity.

Robot - fail.

I like the boxy, humorous robots except for one pivotal scene; when Cooper needs to get his craft spinning at the same rate as the out of control vessel, he recruits the robot, which in turn, extends an appendage to physically take hold of the stick.

No.  Like R2D2 on the Death Star, futuristic robots simply connect, digitally.  Hello, M2M folks.

References to print:

1.  A book at school.  It seems that missions to the moon are so not politically correct, "federally approved history books" explain the Apollo program never happened and the moon missions were all fake.  Another movie reference; Capricorn One, starring OJ Simpson.

Of course, Cooper's daughter brings in a pre-history-changing version and gets suspended for her efforts.  Cooper, an ex-NASA pilot, is not pleased with society or the evil education system, and explains how MRI machines are a direct result of those 'fictitious' trips to the moon.

2.  A Lab Book.  Notes are carefully jotted down by pencil into a common lab book.  A professor is also seen using a bank of chalk boards.

3.  Perhaps the best utilization of paper - explaining the wormhole.

In one scene, a scientist explains why the hole is a sphere by drawing on a slip of paper, bending it and sticking a pencil through.  It is a two dimensional circular hole.  In three dimensions, a circle represents what shape?

A sphere - physics lesson over, beer time.

Enjoy the movie.

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Did ECi Just Hoodwink An Industry?

Describe for me your system for collecting data in MPS assessments.

Does it go something like this?

"The system comprises a local network including several printing devices provided with a diagnostic unit collecting various device working data’s and at least a connecting device connecting a plurality of printing devices,where by the connecting device is adapted for collecting data’s from a plurality of printing devices and for storing said data’s in a digital repository,where by said digital repository is in a form readable by a process or comprising instructions for treating at least some data’s of the digital repository."

If you were to draw it out, workflow, would it resemble this:

One last question - are you utilizing FM-Audit as your DCA?  If so, you're good, if not - do you think you might be in violation of a patent?

ECi has been awarded a patent for:

The “Status Monitoring System and Method” invention is in the field of data collection and digital repositories for printing and imaging devices. The method provides end users with the ability to click a link or download the application from a portable external storage device (USB key) and aggregate data such as meters, toner and ink levels that is collected from both network and local copiers and printers. The patent covers much of the technology found throughout today’s FMAudit suite of products, including Central, Onsite, WebAudit, and Agent."

Its probably nothing, just a way to keep anyone else from stealing FM-Audit's unique method of collecting printer data.  I'm sure intentions are pure and motivation is customer centric.

Time will tell.

Get the patent documentation, here.



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The Magic Quadrant: Reflection of MPS or Marketing Budgets?

"The New Matrix is here!  The New Matrix is here!"

So, yeah...

the Magical Matrix came out last month showing just about everybody - Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, Lexmark, HP, Konica - in the "Leaders" sector for Managed Print Services.

Kyocera and Toshiba end up as "Visionaries" - I guess an erasable copier can be considered visionary - and ARC looks to be the only "Niche Player".  I've always wondered if there is a correlation between the amount of money folks spend with Gartner and their placement in the upper right. Probably not.  Either way, the square looks skewed.

Reflect with me now and consider for a second the definition of managed print services:

"...The active management and optimization of document output devices and related business processes..."

If I had "Greg's MPS Almanac", this is how I would stack the pile:

1.  Xerox - Next Generation MPS
2.  Ricoh - The New Way of WorkIntelligent.ly

3.  ARC

4.  Canon - Fragmented but becoming clear

5.  Lexmark - Verticals, F500, transactional
6.  HP - Who? Except in LA
7.  Konica - Why sell anything but copiers with landed margins like that!

See, There's This Thing Called MIF and Apparently, It Needs Scrubbing...

One of the strongest arguments in MPS is lowering cost through the reduction of the number of devices.(Optimization).  This single leverage point is difficult for an OEM to reconcile as long as there are plants building machines.

I'm not saying players won't shrink MIF - Global loves shrinking Ricoh's MIF; Ricoh and Canon exchange MIF as often as Clinton flip-flopped and HP is out there reducing her own MIF.(Something to do with Ink vs. Toner and what-not)

In this year's Mystical Matrix, everybody except one, operates manufacturing plants and the one player is presented in the lower left.

Not to me.

ARC is different. Specialized and tasked with REMOVING DEVICES FROM EVERYBODY'S MIF, they're about as close to MPS Purity as possible.

Check out the progression:

And the Point?

Millions of dollars are spent by purchasers every year based on who is placed where and I don't think the Mystical Matrix has an once of relevancy in MPS.  The fact that ARC is placed in a lower quadrant tells me that Gartner's definition orbits machines in the field or images captured/under contract.  Which is a losing argument not for the future.

The companies mentioned aren't at fault - HP has a good MPS program, Xerox's is better; Ricoh has a solid MPS program, Xerox's is better.  But the comparison is on a GLOBAL scale. How many of you are selling to Fortune 500?

If anything, the ranking shows how similar ALL the programs have become. They're painting with the same set of colors - or worse - only one.  It would be as if Van Gough painted Starry Night with a single color.

Blah.

We've gotten to the point where all MPS programs look, act, feel, and taste the same.  Where touting the number of collected awards is part of a value proposition . In a world that increasingly regards 'expert research' as rear-view-mirror forecasting, why do we listen?

"No, Really, What's Your Point, Greg."

In a past life, one of my value-props started with, "You know mister prospect, all devices are the same."  I did this for two reasons:

1.  Neutralize competitors selling speeds and feeds
2.  I could sell five different lines

The latest slew of awards and accolades proves my point - all machines are the same.  Here's the kicker, this isn't simply my, personal view - more than likely, your prospects think the same way.  They don't care about BLI or Gartner - they barely think about print - the care about how you empathize and help them solve problems.

Simple.

The best to be done with any of these studies is to ignore and move on.



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I Have Seen The Future of Our Business and it is #Samsung. No. No it isn't. What?

This is what is known as an "Adobe Upgrade"

Dateline, 2014

Do I make fun of the tablet 'duct taped' to the side of a copier?  Yes.

Do I think end users will do whatever they can to avoid standing in front of a copier? Yes.  Even if we attache Netflix or Clash of Clans?  Yes.

Did Tod Pike sell AGAINST A4 devices just four, short years ago?  Well, did Samsung profits just drop like a 1951 era MIG-15?(good lord, google it) Yes.

"Oh, Greg.  Who are you pissing off now?"

Samsung -

Here's the challenges I see with the new user interface:

Reason One - Nobody wants to spend more time in front of a copier.

In all my years of working with clients helping them determine requirements for print and content management, I have never had a client say to me, "I wish I could find another reason to stand in front of the copier."  Well, except for government and education, but let's not get political.

Reason Two - 'Droid isn't a great platform

But what else is Samsung going to use, Yosemite?

Reason Three - The visual stinks.

Honestly, the unit looks like an engineer velcro'd the tablet to the side of a copier.  IKON'a DocSend - now that looked cool.

Hold Your Venom!

I know there are folks ready to fire off a terse comment or email my way, please don't hit 'submit' just yet.  Here are my reasons we should recognize this move as powerful genius.

Tod Pike has been able to get two divisions within one of the largest technology manufacturer's in the world, to come together and bring a combined package to market - in what? Two years?

I see the future of our business with fewer silo's and faster innovation to market - SPEED.

Think about your world: How easy is it for you to get Sales and Service talking?  Right.

How long did HP 'think' about Edgeline before hitting the streets? HP 3D? 2016ish. What train wrecks occurred whenever IPG was inside a PSG account - with a dealer and VAR?

In some organizations, speed to market is measured in 20 quarter cycles.  Our traditional OEMs have one gear to innovation. S L O W.   In this case, it looks like Pike was able to jump the curve.

Maybe there is a back-story and I am giving too much credit, it doesn't matter because Tod isn't stopping here.  He's working with Technology United, integrating Forza AT THE MACHINE LEVEL which would be a gargantuan undertaking for many, but apparently not Tod.

From the outside, it looks logical for a manufacturer of copiers, tablets and phones, to integrate products into a single package.  An example would be Toshiba integrating nuclear reactors inside their erasable copier.  But that's not going to happen.

Remember when HP printers and computers went together like,"...rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong..." (props to Olivia Nutron Bomb).

In a time when MPS messaging gets garbled from the board room to the trenches, seeing a company slap one department on the side of another and bring a product to market, is both refreshing and significant.

Cheers to the process.

####  UPDATE 12/23/2014  ####

Tod Pike as decided to move on, leaving Samsung in early 2015.  What can be gleaned by this turn?

I am not sure.

I can tell you this, the 'droid-tablet-copier will not land more units and if the consolidation of divisions says anything, its that they're shrinking and focusing on equipment based, transactional selling.  Box moving.

Now...let me tell you about a Intellinetics and their 'little box of wonders..."

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Was the 2014 Executive Connection Summit "The Best Show Ever"? Really?

Well, well, well...40 years of evolution, and look where we are today.  

Scottsdale, AZ under the watchful gaze of one of the true gentlemen on the planet - Mike Stramaglio.  

Mike and I first met at a Lyra show and have had many conversations about the sluggish acceptance of the 'connected world' by our industry.  Mike's world has always been about new technology, M2M, P2P, and business engagements blooming into personal relationships.

He not only talked 'Star Trek' stuff but integrated our corner of the world into his talk track, discussing how "...imaging devices and other business equipment are inherently included in  'things'  'people', 'process,' and 'data' - the four components of the Internet of Everything"

Managed Print Services Was Here: Big Data Business Intelligence

From imaging to content to the cloud to Big Data to Business Intelligence to Mobile Business Intelligence.

May 2012-

We're moving from marks on paper to the clouds, all the data is moving off the paper files.

But the data is just data, unusable.

In the old days, we would 'crunch' the numbers either manually or on a spreadsheet.

Today, there is an app for that; instead of the numbers getting crunched on paper, it's being presented on a screen.

Typewriters and impact printers - are gone. Carbon paper, white-out - gone.

Add cubicles, office furniture, water coolers, uniform rental programs, IT departments, factory floors, inventory shelving, hi-los, truck docks, and pallets to that list.

Then take away the roads, parking lots, air conditioning units, and tons of paper.

And all those useless meetings. Gone like a freight train. Gone.

How so?

The answer is in the palm of your eleven-year-olds hand...

It's this new thing called Business Intelligence (BI) and BI's up-and-coming younger brother, Mobile Business Intelligence (MBI).

What is mobile business intelligence?

Here's the short version:

Mobile business intelligence is a set of tools that allows data from multiple databases to be connected, sliced and diced, and presented on your PADD, iPad, Android, or iPhone.

The data is live, sync'd, and in the cloud.

Your information is represented in pretty, colorful dots, bars, and graphs on a single pane.

For a decade the "remote" or "mobile" workforce has referred to the corporate sales team.

Executive management was still chained to the machine: Mainframe, Mini, Micro, PC, Laptop, or Notebook.

The C-levels were tied to devices because that's how they kept in touch with corporate data (JD Edwards, SAP, etc); converting that data to information and the information into intelligence.  Business intelligence is why they got paid the big bucks and the corner office with all the trappings.

Enter MBI.

Today, not only can the executives open and send emails, read magazines, and check spreadsheets they can look at live inventory levels, orders entered, web traffic, and conversions - from any spot on the planet, even at 37,000 feet.

Without teams of number-crunchers, accountants, middle managers, or MBAs.

But wait, there is so much more.

Big data. "Big" like we in the soon-to-be-defunct imagining industry have never seen.

Big as in every single page that has been generated from every single device ever sold. Big as in every single book, magazine, newspaper, blog, website, status, invoice, check, financial report, inventory sheet, delivery receipt, and email ever generated - BI taps into that and mobile BI lets me do it from the beach.

In Bali.

Don't think this only affects the imagining/copying/printing function - no, this reflects the changes in everything.

Because the growth of Big Data is not going to rely on humans entering the data - machines will talk to machines on the intake side of the process and machines will talk to machines during the data-crunch stages - ultimately presenting an intelligent and relevant representation to a person.

The human.  Yes, we're still part of the process, we've just shifted the 'grunt' work to the machines in the cloud, while we toil away on the beach.

Untethered In North Carolina - 2014

Lake Norman, NC. October 2014 -

I’ve been a digital nomad since 2007 as both an employee and a business owner.  In the early days, I remember feeling a bit self-conscious when I first used my laptop in a restaurant.  Those days are long gone.  Today, more people are ‘working remote’ than ever before.

Today, we’ll talk about two establishments worthy of your patronage.

I’ve quantified as much as possible, my criteria based on personal feelings and experiences culminating in a non-scientific rating system called “Mad Max Hours”(MMH) - a homage to the original Road Warrior, Max. The best is five, zero being the worst.  When I feel the establishment is a good place to work remotely, I give it higher hours - as in I’ll feel comfortable staying there for four hours and so on.

Today we look at watering holes with WiFi: Davidson Beverage Company and Carrburritos.

Selling Managed Services: Whose going to get Slapped Around?

10/2014

The oldest profession in the world isn’t prostitution, it’s selling.  One to one; one to many; many to many; retail; B2B; to that hottie in the corner; to your girlfriend, wife, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sales manager, cop, judge, jury; to ourselves – we all sell, and we always have.

Today, our industry is turning another corner – contracting and expanding at the same time. We’re looking for the next frontier and eyeing the IT cluster.

You're pondering selling servers, storage, networks and network management, aren’t you? Putting those monitors, PCs, switches and hard drives under one contract tied into a 36-month “rip and replace” strategy, right?

Sure.  How hard can it be?

Copiers have been connected now for more than a decade. All your devices scan; you’ve sold or heard of a “fax-server.” Your dealership has at least one “Content Specialist,” and RiKon/Xerox employs thousands of cycle-extending PS peeps – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Again, how hard can it be?

Well, there’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is better than we hope; the bad news is worse than we think. It usually is.

The Bad News:

We have approximately 1,500 effective, well-run, imaging dealers/resellers in the U.S. The number of VARs is 15,000. The figure may not be accurate, but the scale certainly is; there are 10 times as many of them as there are us.

They are already in your accounts; they own the network, hold contempt for most salespeople and think they know more than you – which they probably do.

Hubris permeates.

They hate copiers – still – and love brand names. Even if Dell servers suck, once a Dell house, it is difficult to displace. They distrust those who wear a tie and can spot a Polo-shirt-wearing poser with their 'peripherals' – they are militaristic in the use of acronyms.

The Princes of the VAR are the customer-facing subject-matter experts (SME), the guys with all the letters behind their names. They are smart, certified and can speak in front of crowds or directly to CIOs – as peers. But don’t tell them that; most believe they have no peers.

Their deals are complex, multidimensional and project-managed. And I mean real project management – with resources, GANT charts and such.

Most likely, the VAR front-line salespeople, often called BDMs, never physically receive a PO or process an order; they have an inside team to do all that stuff. This gives them more time in the field, in front of their clients – your prospects.

The Good News:

VARs/IT folks don’t really sell; they take orders and write SOWs. They tend to throw technology at everything, yet employ little in-house. They’ve been trained to believe “real cold-calling” happens on the phone. “Sales training” is nothing more than a vendor like Cisco, Lenovo or HP coming in, spewing product, pricing and distribution data, then leaving “leave-behinds.” Yeah, I know – that part sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Most VARs define “service” as pricing, logistics, deal registration, imaging (not the kind we know), prompt delivery, discounts and accurate billing (again, not the kind we know). Client relationships are built on “lunch and learn” giveaways and trading POs for iPads.

Transactional margins are in the single digits; charging for shipping equals margin. Back-end rebates equal margin for the house. Trip-fees are the norm, they have no idea how to manage to “call avoidance,” and trunk-stock is a foreign concept.

So, what to do?

Competing with a VAR head-to-head can be difficult. Especially when your prospect has bought into the belief that copier companies aren't sophisticated enough for real IT issues.  If you can get in under the VARDAR, you have a good chance, since most are not looking at MpS as a serious value-add.  Those who do are experiencing the same mistakes we did – YEARS AGO. They’re stuck in the “powered by” stage of MpS.

Three ideas, 2011:

1. Work with your existing purchasing/facilities contacts without raising much dust. Sell S1/S2 without talking about software, business process management or EDM. Don’t set off any IT red flags.

2. Shore up your internal IT services pedigree. Now is the time to re-evaluate your current talent pool. Tough decisions — there are fewer devices out in the field; therefore, fewer service calls. Figure that one out.

3. Reach out and establish a solid relationship with a VAR as their MpS engine. This is a temporary, parasitic relationship filled with teachable moments. Again, figure that one out.

The times, they are changing. At our core, this niche, the imaging industry, is crowded with resilient, business-minded problem-solvers. We can do this, and for a profit.

Three more ideas, 2014:

Prospect/Sales side:

1. Seek out companies who do not employ any internal IT support staff - resistance is guaranteed
2. Talk to the owner and confirm he values IT is a strategic component of his business model
3. Look at your internal IT. If you don't value IT services, you'll attract folks don't as well

Internal/Infrastructure side:

1. Partner with a master managed services provider like Collabrance.
2. Train your copier reps how to recognize and qualify IT services prospects
3. Do not call in 'managed network services' - why be chained to a network?



Originally posted by Greg Walters on 08/08/2011, 1105 Media.

Before Independence Day, Before Lost in Space, Before Tom Cruise, There was Radio and Orson Wells...

"...We know now that in the early years of the twentieth century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own.

We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. 

With infinite complacence people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar driftwood which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of Time and Space. 

Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the thirty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. 

Sales were picking up. 

On this particular evening, October 30, the Crosley service estimated that thirty-two million people were listening in on radios..." - Orson Wells, 1938.

In a world without the internet, Twitter, cell phones or email a fictitious account of an invasion from Mars scared children, and angered many.

I submit to you a feast for your ears and the kaleidoscope of your mind. Travel back when this new medium, radio, ruled and was blamed for the Death of the Stage show and rotting young minds...enjoy.

Steve Jobs Talks about " Xerox and Copier Heads".

13,000 feet somewhere over the Untied States of America heading to the Executive Summit.

This is a must see for everyone in the industry, in any industry actually. The year is 1996 and Steve Jobs is lamenting how Xerox had the world by a string, they just didn't know it.

Hear for yourself, possibly the first time a pundit refer to "toner-heads, copier-heads". Amazing.

Granted, those times were remarkable; Bill Gates is buying and selling the perennial operating system.  Wozniak is programming for days at a time and the first generation of computer geeks begin to take shape.

The status quo was being challenged by a unorganized, disconnected, computer nerds "doing it for fun".  Xerox, IBM, Burroughs, and others didn't see the PC revolution coming and when they did, most denied .  The rest, as they say, is history. They also say, "study history or be doomed to repeat it".

Look at your industry - There are two sides: the status quo and what I like to call the "Pirates".  The status quo employ marketing departments, game the search engines and confuse marketing content with content.  They purchase analysts and dictate to the market,  spinning a message through the ever dwindling and irrelevant equipment channel.  They tell us to sell equipment all the while knowing it is a dying argument.

There is no paper in the future because there is no future in paper.

Arrrg!  On the other side live the pirates, rogues, outcasts, crazies, disgruntled - the explorers, selling professionals, visionaries, lone wolves.  We'll play the game, find the edges and push. Of course we'll get in trouble, and from the outsider view, we will fail.  But failure has always been about getting back up, not quitting.   The ones on the sidelines never quit, do they? When things go well, everybody's a champio.

I guess what I like about this video is recognizing that this has all happened before.  The timing for such a revaluation couldn't be better.  Unlike the days of Young Jobs, we have instant connectivity to all the like minded.  The days of single voices, screaming in the night are gone.

The only question is what side do you call home?  

Do you feel the need to be dependent upon a " board of directors" or sales manager?  
Do you criticize free flowing organizational construct?  Is structure and policy more important?  
Do you manage to outside benchmarks and look for templates?  
Have you uttered and believed the phrase, "it's always been done that way"?  
Do you still think the "OEMs drive the industry"?  

Yes? Congratulations, you're part of the status quo - leave now and immerse yourself in the following movies/series(therapy): Oblivion, Cloud Atlas, V Is For Vendetta, Battlestar Galactica, Serenity, The Patriot, Tombstone & Saving Private Ryan. Not Glenn Gerry, Wall Street, or Boiler Room. Go...go now.

On the other hand, if you see through the manipulation that is an equipment quota (and still meet them), if you question studies reporting users demand mobile print, or print is growing.  If you do your "job" without going "to the office" and STILL required to show up for Monday morning sales meetings, if you've ever been "written up" - you could be Jobs-like, a Zig in the world of Zags.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Drop me a line.  I'm starting a group of fringe-thinking, bleeding-edgers.  We'll have a charter, but no Board of Directors.  We'll have meetings and adult beverages will be on the agenda.  Our goal will be to network within the group, share cutting edge ideas having fun and making money.

Moderator:

For our audience, what is 'toner'?

Jobs, "Its the black stuff..."

See the video here, http://youtu.be/_1rXqD6M614.


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013 - We Are #MSFT's Worst Nightmare

First published, 1/9/13 on Walters & Shutwell.

The War is Over: WinTel is dying. How do I know? The growing pile of HP technology in the corner of our room tells me so.

Don't get me wrong - I am not a Cult of the Mac, graphic designer types. The last Apple computer my family owned was an IIe back in 1980.   My father, the teacher, got a massive teacher discount.  I barely touched the thing.

I grew up on DOS 2.0-4.0(the one with the square mouse pointer) my first job was with an Inacomp selling B2B, computerized accounting systems.

In addition to Great Plains,  I sold the difference between "IBM-DOS" and "MS-DOS". We despised MACs for their ease of use and lack of business applications.

I sold IBM PS/2' with OS/2. I was there from the beginning of the War. I was there when IBM, like Cleopatra on her barge, left the field of battle open to the clones and Steve Jobs.

A couple decades later, I was a Crackberry advocate and 'droid proponent.

I sold HP9065(Konica) copiers to IT directors back in the day because they loved that little blue logo. My managed print services practice was built around the Edgeline (cold sweat at night) - again, IT loved the logo.

So, yeah - I drank the Koolade for decades.

A few days ago, we brought into the office an iMAC. Jennifer uses it with her iPad, and I use a 2-month-old Mac Book Pro, with my iPad. We moved an older iMac out to be used by the kids. They have an iPhone and iPad Mini between the two. And iPod Touches.  They can bring the devices to school because the school district has implemented a BYOD policy.  A school district - that's what I said.

In the corner of the room sits an HP InkJet printer next to a half-empty box of A4 paper. The case is at least five years old and still contains a few original reams.

We don't print much.

On top of the printer is what I call, "the world's largest laptop, in the world" - some HP huge contraption that I am sure was great in its time but has also been downgraded to kid duty.

There is a Compaq/HP laptop stashed somewhere and soon to join the "pile of HP" is my last PC, ever. A very nice, HP, steel thing-a-ma-bob with so many .tmp files loaded on it, I should just take it into the woods and shoot it out of its misery.

But I won't. I need it for the picture.

We didn't wait for DOS 8.0 because we knew it was going to be a dog.

We didn't wait for all the new tablets, Droid or otherwise, because we knew they would never, ever be an iPad with the Retina display.

We didn't run out and grab the latest E-reader either  - who wants a reader when you can get an iPad mini? Who?

Not many.

Conversely, corporate America did wait. But by the time they saw what they waited for, the Kool-aid had lost its sweetness.  DOS 8.0 won't save anyone, it will remain planted in the past - #MSFT's last attempt has fallen short.  Xbox to the rescue?


Our house is now a house of Mac.

No patches, no blue screen of death, no drivers, no long boot times, and no eye fatigue.

For me, it wasn't how good my eyes felt the second I started using the iPad, that convinced me of MSFT and the PC's death.

It wasn't the zillions of cool, available, and affordable productivity apps or the fact that all my contacts and music are sharable without the headache that tipped the scales.

Just because my computer is now a pleasure to work with, easy to understand, and powerful enough for NASA, I could still see an HP or Dell somewhere in the future. In a public library or someplace.

The convenience, ease of use, and increased productivity of the Mac hadn't convinced me totally of The Fall.

The thing that clinched it, the one observation that pulled it all together, that last nail in the coffin was a little device that fits in the palm of my hand.

A technological marvel.

Like the penny in Somewhere in Time - Apple's Magic Mouse snapped every second from 1980 into the present. Boom, here it was, full circle.

The last item MSFT will see as it fades to black is the first object that set Apple apart:

The Apple (Magic) Mouse.

"Alas poor #MFST, we knew you well..."

"Oh, Canada" - The Symbols of Western Civilization Attacked.

“He was an awesome person,” Perron said. “He always had a smile on his face no matter what situation he was in.”

"You're doing good, you're doing good, buddy," he told Cirillo. "You're breathing -- keep breathing."

"You are loved. Your family loves you. You're a good man," she told him.